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This week, while doing some driving for an article-I was asked: What kind of car is that?

I was taken a bit aback-as my car isn't that unusual looking! It's a quite typical pearl cherry sedan.

My description is: I own a Chrysler 200 S, it's the little sister of the Chrysler 300. Or the updated version of the old Sebring. I have a totally black interior. Don't ask me what the "S" stands for-honestly, I don't know.

This encounter started me thinking about the cars I've owned since my first one at age 16-which was a used Toyota Corolla that was as cute as a car in 1974 could look and still cost under $2 grand. I'm sure if I hadn't been graduating high school that June and entering college I wouldn't have gotten a car. Plus, I had a part time job that took a bit of driving to get back and forth too. Then there was the added facts that my parents counted on me to do the grocery shopping and cart my sister to various things that a 10 year-old occupies her time doing.

That Toyota was white with racing stripes. It was also a money pit. So after working out my first year classes so that I went from Tuesday through Thursday so that I could have it spend 4 day "weekends" being fixed-my parents helped me buy a cute Chevrolet Chevette in beige. I loved that hatchback and kept it through the remainder of college and right up through the birth of our daughter when I was 24.

Steve and I turned it in along with his Toyota for a Toyota Tercel wagon in gold. He was using the work truck from my parents business since he worked pretty much 7 days a week. We then kept that car until Adam was I believe 2. At that point we realized that I couldn't haul around the kids, strollers, extra clothes, a cat in a cage and a German Shepherd and groceries in that tiny thing.

I had been eying the Dodge Caravan with a great deal of love for its size. We traded the Tercel in for the base model of it and didn't trade it in for 6 years. Oh, and Adam took one look at our big cream colored beauty and dubbed it "WOW". Seriously, we named it 'WOW'.

We were thrilled with it and what we could hold so much that after 6 years we bought another one, this time top of the line though: leather and full powered seats and windows (yes, the base model had us using our hands to roll down the old ones), it had a computer system that practically told us everything except how to get somewhere. Remember this was long before the invention of a device commonly called "GPS".

Then while shopping one evening-we were called to the front of the market and told to go outside. Some teenager was being taught how to park by his uncle. The uncle decided a crowded parking lot was the best place to learn this task. After that time, our car may have looked the same-but it never drove the same again.

We took this time to buy a base model G20 by Infiniti (after a never to be mentioned horrible used car) so that we'd have a second car. Yes, we had been a one car family all these years! Loved the G20. It was a beige manual, which worked well for us until my RA was so bad that all that shifting caused me to scream in pain. We traded it for a used J30, also Infiniti it was pearl and had matching pearl leather interior. And eventually we turned the Caravan in for a Nissan Pathfinder-also a base model and white.We seem to like those.

The J30 stayed with us for many a year until Steve traded it in for his present car-a Chrysler Crossfire. It's white with red leather seats and he's had it 9 years now. Adam took over the Pathfinder and I went for my "late" PT Cruiser. A car I had drooled over since I saw the prototype picture in a Popular Science magazine. Until the day it was so horribly murdered, I loved that 10 year old vehicle. Still, it saved me so I feel compelled to love my new red car and ride it with a fair amount of over compensation on the "following the rules" part and not driving at night.

When I think about all this and realize I've been pretty much driving for 40 years, I really can't say I change my vehicle very often and there's always a pretty serious reason for the change.

One cyber-friend, Kathy Holmes, has written a few "chick lit" books with the title of the first being "Real Women Wear Red". I usually try to stay on the more sedate side of things, so I think I chose my car's color with her heroine "Cyn" in mind-instead of clothing, I'm going for Real Women Drive Red Cars.

we sure do. Hopefully going to CA at the end of June-probably using dd’s car as their are 3 women and luggage and always someone at a baby shower who doesn’t think the “please send large objects directly to the parents home” means them!